Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Oscar Grillo - Humble Genius

Check out these great sketches by animator, cartoonist and designer Oscar Grillo.You can see some of his influences and they are from all over the place, from impressionist artists to the Fleischers, Disney, John Held Jr. and humanity itself. Then he mixes it all up and adds a large dose of his own unique look at the world.http://grillomation.blogspot.com/

I remember first seeing his animation in the 80s and being impressed by how modern and traditional it was at the same time.

Seaside Woman is a music video he did for the McCartneys. In the bleak animation landscape of the 1980s, this stood out like a beacon of light. (Sorry for the crappy cliche, but it really did). It showed animation could still be fresh, fun, stylish and skillfully done without formula.

I wish I could find a clearer copy of it, but here it is:

This influenced and inspired me a lot - although he draws a lot better than I do.

Oscar's piece's nicely animated, full of clever use of negative spaces, and a lot of perspective drawing and posing that digital cutout animation (the rage in so many shows now) can't touch.

Still, seeing all these older works, (including your own (Ren, Stimpy, MM The new adventures)) raises the question... what new, fresh things can 2D and drawn animation can do in this 3D, Performance capture age?

It's not coming from Disney ... Princess and the Frog offered a bunch of nice FX and compositing tricks, but otherwise felt like a rehash (am I imagining that PATF animation often felt rushed and strobey)?

I watched this video a few times thanks to a program about animation hosted by Caloi (a great artist from Argentina). With that program you could watch these kind of gems. Too bad it's out of the air now.

Thanks, Shawn. I was thrilled when I tracked that book down. I had first seen Oscar Grillo's work in Animation Blast and was an instant fan. When I finally got that book and opened it, my mouth dropped! It's truly gorgeous!

Just over a year ago Chuck Gammage introduced me to a bunch of Grillos's work, along with many others. I love the way he illustrates absurd, surreal ideas with such detail, such as having a lion in the corner of an apartment watching people have sex.

I also find it funny how his drawings sometimes seem to be deliberately falling apart, as if he were parodying the way some people focus too much on surface details in lieu of form and structure.

His book "The World is Round" is pretty cool, too. I never got to read it thoroughly, but the colours in it really made an impression on me.

All genius Don Oscar Grillo, and proudly boasts that one is Argentine despite years who is in England, but her little heart and great friends are here too, in our land.Deserved tribute you've done to John., Forgive my poor English.

There is kind of a "school" in argentina of people that draw like this.It reminded me the work of Carlos Nine, and I think they're pretty similar, but I cannot tell wich came first.http://www.carlosnine.com/

and, by the way, you should check out http://www.caloi.com.ar/ and http://rodolfofucile.blogspot.com

great video. reminds me of the style of an advert on tv that was famous in the 1980s for kia ora orange drink

I remember this ad when I was living in UK in '80's. One of my favorites {"I'll be your dog!")It was done by Richard Williams, of Roger Rabbit and Thief and The Cobbler fame. I hadn't seen Seaside Woman in twenty years, used to have a McCartney bootleg VHS collection ('til it was stolen)with all his seventies promotional videos, his 1980 SNL apearance w/ Father Guido Sarducci, People's Concert For Kampuchea and Wings Over The World (later known as Rockshow).

Ah! John and everyone there...you should see the work of carlos nine, an argentinian genius...really he does a very stylized work with a lot of "Tango" spirit in it... and also with very classical drawing skills...

My mom always scoffs at my endearment towards things like Gollywoggs and seemingly "blacky" characters. But I like them because they have character, and I do know some black people that look like this and those Gollywoggs! Sure it's not all black people, but they're legit designs as long as they fit what's needed to be portrayed.

Anyways, I kind of got a bit of "blacky" out of the video, but not the racist kind. Just good ol' fun!

I kind of dislike how black characters in today's animations are watered down in terms of being only one or two shades of brown, and not other colors like off-white (my mom who's black) and charcoal, (my dad).

Very nice! Also, I think you should get into studying up on more european animation, John. Never know what you might find:

List_of_animated_feature-length_films

And I know of a few sites stocked to the brim with many european animated shorts. Some in russian... Say, you never seem to mention any russian animation, john, even though it has became very popular a subject to most western viewers. Ah, here's a site:

http://mults.spb.ru/mults/

Eh, well, there's a bunch of shorts on that site... But take your time, see if you spot any shorts you like.